Jean in Newcastle Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 I started out this homeschool journey the Charlotte Mason way. Not only did I have the short lessons and the narrations, but I really didn't have a lot of textbooks at all. What I did have were these checklists I had for Kindergarten and 1st grade. It was divided up in categories by subject. As I covered different concepts and skills in living books and living activities (my coined phrase) I would check off the skills as they got to be second nature to my child. In second grade though, for reasons mainly having to do with my health at the time, switched over to text and workbooks. As I did so, the life seemed to go out of our homeschool. Would it be completely crazy for me to make up a checklist for 5th grade? It would have stuff on it like "add fractions with a common denominator" or "can pick out the conjunctions in a sentence". It would be more work to find games and activities that would teach or reinforce such concepts and I'm not against using some texts occasionally as part of the process. For some odd reason I feel like perhaps having a check list would be less of a "checking things off" sort of a schooling method than going page by page through a text and workbook. Thoughts on this? I really am thinking "out loud" so to speak and haven't decided one way or another. (School doesn't start here in the public schools until next week so while I'm late in thinking this through I'm not too far behind yet.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Another Lynn Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 I think it's fine if you're comfortable making your list and with how you will implement it. For me, personally, it would drive me a little batty to do that for something like math when I could easily rely on a program to make the bulk of those decisions for me. On the other hand, since I don't have a grammar program I love after FLL4, I think it's a great idea for grammar. :D It sounds like you're thinking mostly about skill subjects? Would you approach "content" subjects the same way or differently? When our homeschool starts to feel too schoolish to me and I wish for something more CM-ish, I start to look at how we're doing history and literature. Are we using a bad spine? Are we not sharing enough together in the learning (either through read alouds or discussions)? Are we using living books? or whatever.... Just my .02. :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Down_the_Rabbit_Hole Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 I think this is a perfectly wonderful way to school. I am slowly working my way into doing this for all of dd's subjects. Katheryn Stout has a full curriculum set doing just this. Her books (each book is based on a subject: Math, Science, History) are lists by grade of things that need to be covered, how you do the covering is up to you. The only drawback I can see is if life prevents you from planning and gathering what is needed. But with a home library and the internet these bumps can be smoothed out. I say go for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted August 31, 2012 Author Share Posted August 31, 2012 I think it's fine if you're comfortable making your list and with how you will implement it. For me, personally, it would drive me a little batty to do that for something like math when I could easily rely on a program to make the bulk of those decisions for me. On the other hand, since I don't have a grammar program I love after FLL4, I think it's a great idea for grammar. :D It sounds like you're thinking mostly about skill subjects? Would you approach "content" subjects the same way or differently? When our homeschool starts to feel too schoolish to me and I wish for something more CM-ish, I start to look at how we're doing history and literature. Are we using a bad spine? Are we not sharing enough together in the learning (either through read alouds or discussions)? Are we using living books? or whatever.... Just my .02. :001_smile: I think I would use a curriculum like Singapore as the spine but try to look for games etc. to teach what Singapore is doing in workbook form. Some of those games would be games that are in the TE for Singapore. Obviously we will still have to have some paper work and so we'll probably do some of the workbook stuff too. Yes, I'm thinking skill subjects. I already take a CM approach for content areas. I just need to make sure my book selections for content areas are better because they haven't been as "living" or interesting as I'd like. My curious daughter hates school but loves to learn. So something is wrong with our school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted August 31, 2012 Author Share Posted August 31, 2012 I think this is a perfectly wonderful way to school. I am slowly working my way into doing this for all of dd's subjects. Katheryn Stout has a full curriculum set doing just this. Her books (each book is based on a subject: Math, Science, History) are lists by grade of things that need to be covered, how you do the covering is up to you. The only drawback I can see is if life prevents you from planning and gathering what is needed. But with a home library and the internet these bumps can be smoothed out.I say go for it. Oh, I'm going to look for her stuff! If I don't have to reinvent the wheel I would love it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momto2Cs Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 Oh, I'm going to look for her stuff! If I don't have to reinvent the wheel I would love it! I just ordered a bunch of her books - thanks for this thread! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest shellz4 Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 I think I could have written this post! We also started out many years ago in a CM style homeschool, but in years to follow (and adding more kids) I fell into a very workbook laden curriculum which resulted in my kids being very negative about school and just not enjoying it at all. Last spring, I began schooling a lot like what you mention above. I have a list of what I want my boys to learn and we cover subjects as needed. For language arts I use Write Source 2000 as a guide of concepts that they should learn. I teach these on my big white board. I have my guys write down the info as copy work in a blank book (a bit of Waldorf inspiration here). I do still use AAS for my younger guy and lots of games etc. We also do science, history and geography this way with a list of topics and lots of living books, narrations written in our blank books etc. I haven't tried math in this way yet, but I think it could work. It would work very well with the curriculum Math on the Level I think. I know this isn't for everyone, but my kids are so much happier and they are learning so much more this way. They look back on the "books" that they are making filled with so much wonderful information, narrations, drawings etc and they feel very accomplished. Michelle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted August 31, 2012 Author Share Posted August 31, 2012 You inspire me, Shellz4. Welcome to the Hive Mind! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest shellz4 Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 Aww..thanks. I am kind of quiet. I guess I should stop all of this lurking and say what's on my mind more often:001_smile: Michelle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted August 31, 2012 Author Share Posted August 31, 2012 Are the Kathryn Stout books the Design-a-study ones? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soror Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 I like the idea. I'm going to have to think on that one for us here as we are re-engineering our year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Down_the_Rabbit_Hole Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 Are the Kathryn Stout books the Design-a-study ones? Yes. Simple to use and if you look on Ebay you can find them cheap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alisonslp Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 Mine are 11 and 9 and every year, I make a "skills list" for each child, much like you explain. And as we cover the topics throughout the year, I check them off. Math is the only subject where we use a set text. For all other subjects, we use a variety of books, real life, research, internet, resources, field trips, etc. I typically use our school district's skills list as a reference for grade level skills and adjust it to fit my kiddos needs/wants as well as what I feel is important for them to learn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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